Speaker: John Lovell, Genome Sequencing Center, Hudson Alpha Institute & DOE Joint Genome Institute

Introduced to science as a botanist and field ecologist studying plant invasions in undergrad (Colorado College, 2005-2007), rare plant demography during a post bac (Archbold Bio Station, FL, 2007-2008), and population genetics of rare mustards early in grad school (Colorado State University 2008-2010). Discovered quantitative genetics as grad student in McKay Lab at CSU and co-wrote a successful DFG (German Science Foundation) grant proposal to study the evolutionary impact of apomixis (asexual seed production) with Tim Sharbel (then at IPK Gatersleben, Germany). Completed my Ph.D. in 2013, splitting time between Germany and US, then did a 1-year post-doc with Sharbel (2013-2014). Was awarded an NSF plant genome research initiative postdoctoral fellowship at UT Austin with Tom Juenger (2014-2017) to study genome evolution in panicum, which gave me the space to learn genomics. Started at HudsonAlpha in 2017 as a computational biologist and have lead the evolutionary analysis group since 2020. I now coordinate analysis, interpretation and publication of many of our externally-funded projects as well as the majority of the Joint Genome Institute plant program community science projects.

Host: Grey Monroe (gmonroe@ucdavis.edu)